A memorable week!

This week was SWEET! I'mma tell y'all why!

So on Tuesday, we were in Omaha on exchanges with the Assistants to the President. It was an awesome time down there. I met a family that just had their 2 sons baptized last weekend and they are awesome. Then, something very special happened. We had dinner at our Mission President's house. It was a super special occasion, because he had some young men passing through from his home are of Bountiful, Utah. He took that opportunity to have them go with missionaries and spend 3 hours that night working as missionaries! The one that we (elder Olsen and I) took was named Rafael Guerrero and he was awesome. We had a blast doing the work and meet some people that really needed to hear us. For example, we met a nice man named Dante. He was just getting out of someone's car and heading into his house when we stopped him and talked to him. He said that he didn't believe in God. We asked him why and he simply stated that he has tried everything to reach out to God and didn't feel that he was there (he was even a monk at one point). I then simply offered the Book of Mormon and testified that it was the way that I knew God was real. He seemed pretty short on time but we were able to talk to him for about 20 minutes total and the whole time he was basically asking for more. It was a very unique and special experience for my mission. And there was about 3 other times were the same kind of thing happened of someone not being that interested at first eventually listening to our message for a while. I loved that day!

That very next day, Wednesday, we had an awesome lesson with a man named Jose Angel. He is an old man from El Salvador who is amazingly humble and really just wants to join our church. It's honestly awesome. He accepts like everything we say and then thanks us for the 5th time in 10 minutes for caring about him. He is going to get baptized, once his fiancee gets here from El Salvador and they get married. 

Then, yesterday, we were trying some people from a list of names from like 7 years ago and we met a man from El Salvador who took the missionary lessons just a mere 20 YEARS AGO AND STILL REMEMBERS EVERYTHING AND ALREADY KNOWS THAT IT IS TRUE! It's amazing!! and once he gets back from vacation he wants to get baptized! WOWOWOWOWOWOWOW.

And all these awesome things are happening while this is my last week here in Sioux City. It's crazy. It's like a 100% chance that I'm getting transferred in 2 days but I don't know where yet. I hope somewhere cool!

Love you all!

Elder Cox

This week was a GOOD week.

So, recently we have been really struggling with our finding of new people to teach. It's really quite frustrating sometimes. BUT! This week, we found a total of 7 new people to teach! That's awesome. It's something that we have really been trying to do. It's really awesome to see how the Lord has blessed us for trying harder and harder. 

One of the ones we met is named Ricky (well Ricardo but he goes by Ricky). He speaks both English and Spanish. And he is awesome. He loves talking to anyone of any religion because he loves learning more. He has met with us before and this time we were able to talk a lot about how we can know that the things we teach are true. He has prayed before to know but has not received an answer that they are true. So we are going to work with him on that. It will be awesome! 

An other one of the people we met is named Jose Angel. He lives about 40 minutes west of Sioux City in a little town called Wakefield, Nebraska, where the only stores are the gas station and a Dollar General (just built too! lol). His wife died 6 years ago and he is about to be married to a sister of one of our very active members. He is so excited to have a wife again lol and is just waiting . But he is soooooo willing to do everything we ask him to do. He loved church yesterday and the week before (that's where we met him) and he wants to keep coming. He is an awesomely humble guy. 

And I just recently passed 9 months in total that I've been here in Sioux City and a little more than a year since I've been really close to Sioux City. I've grown to love these people and it's been a really fun opportunity to learn and grow as well. 

I love ya'll! Have a great week!

Elder Cox

Buenos Dias!

Man, this morning we had to translate for 3 and a half ours because one of the Members of our Branch had to get an eye exam. so that's why I'm e-mailing so late in the day. so I need to be fast.

This week was honestly kind of frustrating. We had to go down to Norfolk again and then also go to O'Neill, Nebraska both to help the missionaries down there. There are quite a few missionaries here going through some hard times in their missions. But it's awesome that we are able to be here to help them. So that's good. 

So we had 2 days where we weren't in Sioux City like at all. Like only for 2 hours to visit people on Friday. It wasn't fun. And, because of this, we haven't really been able to find like anyone who is ready to listen to us for more than once. They love to have us over once but after that, they don't really want us to come back to badly. So it is frustrating. We are working hard but we seem to lack something. We haven't figured out what that something is.

The good news is that Pete, one of our investigators is reading and stuff! So it is really awesome! 

The Week of Stress and HAPPY AMERICA DAY!

This last week we had something really special: Spanish Conference! It's where all of the Spanish Missionaries in our Mission come together and get trained by the Spanish Leaders and usually a guest who knows a lot about Spanish and how to be a missionary. Surprise! I'm one of the Spanish Leaders that had to give part of the Conference and plan and coordinate it all. So last time I had ever felt so stressed out involved a week with Spanish Conference all on it's own. This time, I was not able to sleep well for 2 days before, we had a 4 hour Leadership Meeting before the Conference AND the fire alarm in the Castle went off at 1:30 AM that morning. I hadn't even fallen asleep and so I don't think that I even fell asleep before 3:30 am, making me have like maybe 2 hours of sleep (we had to get up at 5 to be in Omaha for the meeting). So I know that it was only through the grace of God that it all worked out and that I didn't feel tired at all during the Conference. Before: verrrrrryyyy tired. After: kinda. MIRACLES, i tell you, MIRACLES.

So yeah. That's the high point of the week. otherwise, yesterday was AMERICA DAY! WOOOOH!!! We had an awesome ward picnic and ate some good food. We can't light off fireworks as missionaries but we had a good time watching them from the castle window. it was awesome. Merry Independence Day!

I hope you all had a great week and that you all enjoy FREEDOM!!!!

Elder Cox

My Boy Got Cut!

So that sounds super dramatic but he got some moles surgically removed this morning. Fun Facts. I just needed a good title too. 

This week was good. Recently we have been struggling to find new people to teach. Like we will meet a lot of people but like none of them actually are that interested. So we didn't really have any that we were going to count as people that we teach. Like we have had 0 for the past almost 3 weeks. Until yesterday! We were going to have 1 last lesson with someone who I have taught like 3 times before. And the rest of their family was there! They are really funny and love to have a laugh. We taught them and then they invited us to have a grill this Saturday for lunch! They really enjoyed having come over. And they have known missionaries before (in fact my first companion here in Sioux City taught them last) but it has been since I got here that they haven't seen or talked to missionaries. So it's awesome. 

Otherwise, this week was pretty normal. But Saturday was AWFUL. You won't quite understand why, but let me tell you. So, as missionaries we get food from members of our congregation like 5-7 times a week (here in Sioux at least) and it is good, greasy, authentic Hispanic food. And Hispanics LOVE to stuff you full. They always say "Comen mas! Quieren mas?" (meaning "Eat more! Do you want more?"). And occasionally, even if you say no, they give you more anyways. So Saturday, we had breakfast with a member set up, a lunch in a smaller town set up, AND a dinner set up. So it was already going to be a LOT of food. THEN, after breakfast but before lunch, a family offered us food right before a lesson and they just KEPT insisting. So we had like 3 tacos to satisfy them. So this was the total food consumed by me and my companion: 9 Pancakes, 6 eggs, 14 tacos (of a good size), and 2 tortas (mexican sandwiches). We were just like destroyed because we ate so much. We barely at anything on sunday and now we are starting to feel just a bit hungry. We sacrificed much for those that we taught XD. But yeah. The pains.

Anyways, that was a long story. I hope you are all doing good! Luckily, not every day has been in the 90s here and I hope that it continues that way.

Love y'all!

Elder Cox

The Change.........

So I'm still in Sioux City. And I have a different companion! It's not a new companion, cuz it's a companion that I had before again!!!!!!!!!!! 

IT'S ELDER WILTBANK! The one that I left to come up here to Sioux City only about 8 months ago! It's pretty crazy man. I'm including an old picture because I let Elder Jensen borrow my camera for a bit and he's gonna send it back to me. But yeah! He's my boy! The "Father and Son" are back together! (in the mission, when someone trains a missionary they refer to it as "having a kid" so Elder Wiltbank is my "son" lol)

So yeah, it's been an interesting week. I got him on Wednesday and that's when Elder Jensen left. We found some reallllllllllyy nice people while trying to contact someone that a member told us to go try and we got some papaya (which we both dislike) from this nice man named Esdras. He just let us in right when we knocked and fed us some mangoes too. He is awesomely nice. 

Then, on Thursday, we got a text from our Mission President asking us if we could go to Norfolk that day to do an exchange with a missionary who was struggling with motivation. We will call him Elder Doe. I had the opportunity to spend all day with Elder Doe and to help him through that time. The companionship had been majorly reject 3 times within 5 minutes and that just started a downward spiral for them. The other missionary had already started to be motivated and hopeful again but Elder Doe just said he kept getting caught up in doubts, fear of what others would end up saying, etc. so he wasn't motivated. We had a great day and we taught some awesome lessons together. One of the best occasions was when we pulled up to someone's house, we didn't really know what we needed to teach. So we just quickly talked about the family and made a little plan for the lesson. Elder Doe then said, as I was looking up a scripture, "I'm really glad we stopped to make this lesson plan. The husband of this family just got home, so now we can go in." It was awesome. Then, I gave him some advice to help him out during his prayers and studies, and this can help everyone. When praying, just start with 5 minutes of gratitude to God. Then, repeat a positive phrase 10 times to God. Then continue the pray how ever you want. When studying, begin with a prayer asking God for the answer to a specific question. Write down the question and pay attention to your feelings and thoughts as you study. By the end of the exchange, Elder Doe felt that the Spirit of God had touched his heart and he again had hope and motivation to go out and do God's work. He said that the prayer and study advice helped him the most and that is how the spirit of God was able to help him. He now feels that he has sufficient resources to fight off or prevent this lack of motivation the next time it comes, as this wasn't the first time that it has happened either. It was awesome to see that it wasn't what I said that mattered but what he was told by the Spirit of God. 

So yeah. That was a very key experience that i never want to forget from my mission. I truly saw the Atonement of Jesus Christ and The Spirit of God help that missionary to feel comforted and motivated. And I know that this can happen to all of us as we go through our lives. The Spirit of God can touch our hearts if we reach out to him and seek.

I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Cox

The Last Week of My Companion

So yeah this was Elder Jensen's last week in his mission! He has had a great mission. We have spent a forth of our mission together, which is a LLLLOOONNNGGG TIME. But he is awesome. He is a friend of my soul now. 

Anyways, this week has been pretty good. We've met some awesome people and there are some people that we haven't been able to see. But it happens. There has been 4 days straight now of like 95 to 100 degrees and there are lots of mosquitoes and flies just bugging us. But it was still a great week. We were asked to help a family out by casting an evil spirit out of their home. It was kinda creepy but it was a good experience to have with that family. I really felt the Spirit of God there and the wife and daughter of the family felt it too. It was awesome. 

One of the people that we teach invited us out to lunch at a place called Fuji Bay. It's a sushi restaurant. It was sooooooo goooood! But we forgot to take pictures. T.T But this person, named Pete, is the husband of one of our members. He is a truck driver, which means that he is gone like alllllll week except for 2 days, Thursday and Friday. But he told us that he got a local job and that he is quitting his other job! Which is sooooooo AWESOME! That means he can come to church with his family and can meet with us more. It's an awesome thing that shows a lot of progress with him. It shows progress because he has gotten a local job before but never quit his old job. He just took a vacation so he could try out the new job. He didn't like the new one so he went back to the old job. But now it's different. YAY! lol. So yeah. That's some awesome progress. 

Saturday night, we had a big cultural event! We had tons of people bring in food from different countries and cultural (such as spain, africa, tonga, etc.). There was like over 100 people that came! IT WAS SOOO SUCCESSFUL. So yeah. I'll include a picture from the clean up that we took.

I hope you all have a good week! I'll be sure to have lots of good pictures next week of my new companion!

Elder Cox